Christmas Festivities Part II: Christmas Eve

This year we had the 2nd annual Christmas Eve Dinner at our house. We started off the evening by going to the Christmas Eve service at our church and then back home for food and presents! We had a TON of food and a TON of fun! Mark's mom and his sister, her husband and our 2 nieces came over. Clay loves spending time with his cousins so he had a blast! I took a ton of pictures, so I'll just let them tell the story!

Clay's cousins, Grace and Ellie.

About to break into the first present. He was excited about the Elmo wrapping paper!

He loved his new PJs... especially the Elmo ones!

He also loved his Toy Story book his Nan got him.

His Nan also got him a big Thomas train set. I had been holding off getting him anything Thomas since I knew he'd be getting a lot of it for Christmas. He will not stop playing with his trains!

Grace got a new North Face jacket.

Ellie got a Cam Newton jersey...

And Justin Bieber's Life Story... amazing a 16 year old can already have a life story book!

Clay got a Thomas shirt from his Nan and had to wear it immediately.

These are body pillows... but they look more like flotation devices.

Clay helped his Nan open the book we made for his 2nd year.

He also helped Aunt Lee Lee and Uncle Ray Ray open their gifts.

But I think his favorite gift of the night was Uncle Ray Ray's coffee cup. Not sure if it's a good thing that he knows how to "turn it up"!

Clay was exhausted from all the fun and more than willing to go to bed. Before we went to bed we watched his video from Santa one last time and then made sure we told "Ho Ho" all the presents he wanted before he went to sleep.

Christmas Festivities Part III: Christmas Day coming up!

Christmas Festivities Part I: Clay's Christmas Party

This year I volunteered to help out with Clay's Class Christmas Party. I made Oreo Truffles, got some Christmas cupcakes, Cheeze-it's and Elmo juice boxes... everything 1 and 2 year old's love! It was a lot of fun watching them devour their treats and have a good ole time!

Clay was very serious when it came to drinking his Elmo juice! He didn't want to waste a drop... until he discovered how funny it was to squeeze it and make juice go everywhere!
This is sweet Jiselle. She and Clay have been in the same class almost since he started at this school.

Here's all the kids enjoying their treats. I think it's so cute how they all sit at the little table!
Cute little Cadence... She LOVED the Oreo Truffles!
Clay was a mess when he was finished!
Clay with 2 of his teachers, Miss Haley and Miss Ashley. Miss Haley is his girlfriend and he LOVES her! She's been his girlfriend for quite a while now. I thought his love for her would fade, but it's still going strong! I keep telling him that she's engaged, but I guess he just doesn't care.
More to come from our Christmas Festivities as soon as I can get the pictures downloaded to my computer!

27 Months

Clay... You are now 27 months!

This month your language has REALLY taken off! You are so cute when you say things. I can ask you your name and you say "Ca-Lay". The other day when I picked you up from school, I said "Hey, Buddy" and you said "NO, Ca-Lay!" You talk in full sentences now and say all kinds of words I didn't know you even knew! The other day we were looking at the Christmas tree and one of the many Aubie ornaments was turned the wrong way and you said "Aubie is backwards". Everything you see now you say "I need (fill in the blank)"... "I need that book", "I need that hat". You know so many colors, shapes, letters and numbers it's hard to even keep up. You even recognize you name when I write it out for you.

You LOVE the Christmas tree and are obsessed with looking (and touching) every ornament. There is an ornament that plays "Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer" that you love! You press the button to turn on the music and dance around the room. You like to find every Aubie ornament and turn on all the ones that have buttons. You are very excited about "Ho Ho". He sent you an email video the other day and you had to watch it over and over. You couldn't believe that he had pictures of you and knew that you wanted Thomas the Train stuff. Every night before we go to bed, I always ask you who we are going to talk to... typically you say "Jesus"... but now you've added "Ho Ho" to the list. We talk to Jesus first... and then you have to tell Ho Ho what you want for Christmas. This list always consists of choo-choo's and movies.

You're starting to move on from Elmo and Sesame Street and replacing it with Veggie Tales and Mickey Mouse. You LOVE Mickey Mouse and would watch it all day long if we'd let you. You still like to watch Thomas and anything Dinosaurs. You love Christmas shows... I think we've watched Merry Madagascar 20 times! You love the Charlie Brown Christmas movie and can pick out the Charlie Brown theme song whenever you hear it. You have also made your mother proud this month... I played you the Hippo Christmas song (I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas) and now you request it over and over. You are definitely my child!

You're going through a touch of the terrible two's and sometimes DRIVE ME CRAZY!!! Time-out is still working pretty good for you and counting to "3" (with a 2 1/2... 2 3/4 thrown in there) usually gets you to stop what you are doing.

You like to play with your Toy Story people and Mr. Potato Head. We've also pulled out your Little People Christmas Village and you love playing with that. You love it when we give you the Toys R Us or any Toy magazine from the newspaper and will sit there and look at it forever! You pick out what you want us and Ho Ho to get you. One time you told us you wanted "Barbies" and we said "No, that's for girls"... so now you think it's funny to tell us you want Barbies. Sometimes we'll ask you if you want Barbies and you say "No, girls!".

One cute thing that you've started doing is calling dada, "Daddy". You will occasionally call me "Mommy", but most of the time it's "Mama". You've even started telling us "Love You". Melts my heart every time. You've gotten really good at saying "Please" and "Thank You".

You still let me rock you to sleep and I love that! You like to sing while we rock... you are quite the singer! You must get that from your Mama :o). Your favorite song is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"... although, you think it's "Pinkle Pinkle Little Star". You also sing the Barney theme song and the "ABCs". You continue to be a great sleeper - you go to bed at 8:00 and I get you up at 7 on school days and you sleep in usually until about 8 on the weekends. You still even take your 3 or 4 hour naps on the weekends. Please don't EVER change that!

You've been so much fun and there's just so many new things that you do each month! Can't wait to see what happens next month!

Christmas Parade

Last night was our small city's Christmas Parade. It was absolutely FREEZING outside, but that didn't stop us from depriving our little man of seeing the big Christmas Parade. We bundled everyone up and headed down to freeze our butts off!

Clay was a little bored waiting on the parade to start.
I got him his first pair of gloves and he was very excited about them... until he discovered that he could pick up more candy if he took them off!

And I know there are haters out there that look down on people who use the backpack leashes, but let me just tell you... that thing saved my child's life! Ok, that was a little dramatic, but it did help keep him from getting trampled by the band, some horses and Santa. It was dark outside and I definitely did not want to have to go running down the street after my crazy two year old! Thanks so much to my friend Jen who had this in her car!

And Clay didn't even mind it. In fact, he didn't want anyone but me to hold onto the leash! Such a Mama's boy!

He did let Daddy hold it for one picture, but then leash duty was back to me. His poor little teeth are probably chattering which is why his smile looks a little funny in this picture.

We hung out with the Harris family. Jack and Clay were racking up on the Candy!

Everybody on the floats, tractors, trucks, etc. would throw candy as they went by. Clay would get so excited and say "Yay, Candy!" and run out and pick it all up.

Clay loved this choo-choo!

And finally Santa showed up... on his fire truck!

Clay was VERY excited to see "Ho Ho"!

I'm very glad we decided to go even though it was freezing! Clay had a great time!